Journey to Spiritual Self: Internal Empowerment

By Aqualma S. Y. Murray M.A

The book is about Aqualma’s life journey as a child of sexual abuse growing up in London from a black perspective and with the experience of traditional spiritual practices. This book will serve as guidance as well to those who wish to transform their adversities into resilience and empowerment from a spiritual foundation.

The book offers insight into how to change your life from the inside out and understanding personal power with suggestions and tools to assist on the journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jul 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781982223847

Aqualma S. Y. Murray M.A

Aqualma is a dyslexic author who has achieved a great deal as writer and professional. She is an ordained Interfaith Minister a love your self heal your life licence teacher a certified counsellor of survivors of abuse and holds qualifications as an educator of adults certificate in social group work. as well as an advanced award in social work and a Masters in social work. Aqualma is a Caribbean British woman who is the matriarch of a very large family. She brings a wealth of knowledge compassion and experience to all whom she meets with one intention that is to enrich support and enhance all with positive and progressive life journeys.

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Copyright © 2019 Aqualma S. Y. Murray, M.a.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-2383-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-2385-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-2384-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019904932

Balboa Press rev. date: 07/10/2019

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Foreword

Chapter 1 You Will Grow More Beautiful

Chapter 2 Life-changing Experiences

Chapter 3 The Power of Being in Grace

Chapter 4 Unconscious and Negative Attraction.

Chapter 5 Direct Messages from Spirit

Chapter 6 When the Blessings Start to Pour

Chapter 7 Giving and Receiving

Chapter 8 What Daddy knew about spirit back home?

Chapter 9 The Foundation of My Belief and Spiritual Practice.

Chapter 10 What is Spirituality?

Chapter 11 W.I.S.D.O.M (Whole Inner Spiritual Development of Me)

Chapter 12 Spiritual Empowerment, Inner Power (Read nd just imagine. It may change your life.)

Chapter 13 The Power of Sexual Energy and its link to Creative Spiritually.

Chapter 14 Choices and the Power to Change:

Chapter 15 Building Resilience: The stuff that makes us bounce back.

Chapter 16 To Trust is toTake a Chance

Chapter 17 The Spiritual Teachings in New Zealand.

Chapter 18 The Material and Spiritual Journey to my Physical Home

Chapter 19 Dear Yahweh

Chapter 20 Inspirational Spiritual Talk

Chapter 21 Let It Be So and So It Is

Chapter 22 Spiritually Touching the Lives of Others

Chapter 23 Positive Thinking Programme - (created and designed by Aqualma Empowerment Services)

Chapter 24 Contemplating Relationships

Chapter 25 Life Plans

Chapter 26 Each One Teach One: Raising a Positive Black Male Child (Against all the Odds)

Conclusion

Recommended Readers List

INSPIRING OR WHAT!

THE JOURNEY TO SPIRITUAL SELF—A Spiritual Biography

SPIRITUALLY WHOLE AND COMPLETE

Acknowledgements

I n order to acknowledge the many people and experiences that have brought me to this point in my life and enabled me to finally complete this book, I have to first give thanks to the Most High who has protected and guided me along this journey to a place of spiritual knowing—thank you, my blessed mother and father God.

I am also truly grateful to my earth mother, Bernice Eugenie Campbell Murray, God rest her soul, who loved me so dearly and made me feel so precious. My mother showed a deep respect, understanding and acceptance of me, even when she disagreed with my views or actions, which has taught me to hold an appreciation and value for others who may be similar or different to me.

My father and brothers, (the Murrays), proud and confident in their sense of togetherness and a belief in their accumulative strength allowed me to feel special and valued, so much so that they were extremely overprotective of me, which although hindering me at times has also allowed me to safely become who I am today, a very strong, powerful, yet humble, independent and calm black woman.

I want to express a big thank you to the Historian, Dr Josef Ben-Jochannah, who my niece, Laverne and I met in the 90s while on holiday in Egypt. Dr Ben-Jochannah kindly took time out of his very busy schedule to meet with us and he gave me guidance on writing this book, he advised me to include at least four pictures as this will make the book more interesting. I followed his advice. God rest his soul. I am truly grateful for his time, knowledge and wisdom.

There are a number of other special people in my life, who gave me encouragement and support as I took many years to write this book. I want to thank my dearest son Parez-Jade Murray, who we refer to as PJ, for his consistent support and encouragement in helping me to remain motivated in the task of writing and training others. PJ has always been able to see the big picture and knew, somehow, what was worth holding on to and what to let go of, and he so skilfully perceived the hidden future benefits in all adverse situations. My son PJ gently reminded me that the writing of this book would assist so many others.

To my dear friend Atienda, an intelligent, articulate, strong black man who painstakingly would phone me and remind me that the writing of this book was indeed my ambition and that I needed to continue writing, in spite of my very busy life. His partner Yaa, a highly ambitious woman, a skilled lecturer in the art of writing, with a deep understanding of what allows women to feel nurtured and empowered, who kindly read the first draft of this book and gave me constructive direction.

Very recently I found the love of my life, Israle, we got married in 2017 and he has patiently read parts of the book and helped with the graphics, he also gently encouraged me to keep on going and gave me the final push to complete this task.

I am so very grateful to my dear cousin Lorraine, who painstakingly read, edited and reviewed this book in order to make it into the product that it now is. Thank you very much.

And finally, to all the people who allowed to me to get close to their lives through attending my empowerment workshops and taking part in individual spiritual counselling so that I could understand and share how the inner energy that we all share works in so many wonderful and different ways, to guide, support and help us to grow or not, as the case may be.

The Journey to Spiritual Self

(The Path to a Place of Knowing)

Introduction

W hat is the purpose of life? Could it be about being available to help others or finding out who we really are? We are about to explore some of what happens in life and how we can ensure that those experience work for us.

I perceive myself as an intelligent, educated, warm, friendly and humble woman, who is keen to assist and support others. I have spent many years wondering why people suffer and what are the benefits of all the horrendous experiences some of us must endure. I think I now know some of the answer to this profound question.

This book is about the reasons that people struggle and the path to less pain and suffering through positive thinking and the connection with spirit. I will also discuss the power of positive thinking and methods towards enhancing our life experiences.

I will be sharing some life experiences as a tool to help you understand how I have overcome and assisted others in overcoming some of life’s most testing challenges.

I will talk of my personal experience of sexual abuse as a small child and how I have spent my working life as a probation officer, residential social worker and now work as a Local Authority Designated Child Protection Officer (LADO), investigating professionals who pose a risk of harm to children. I will describe how I have used my pain as a child to understand the issue of children’s and adult’s mental health issues and how I have delivered training to a wide range of professionals who work with children.

I will discuss the issue of converting adversity into prosperity.

We will explore the avenues to living a content and happy life and experiencing amazing self-achievements, comfort and peace.

Foreword

I n order to help the reader understand how I have come to embrace spirituality and to give insight into my journey, I need to tell you a little about me. I was born in 1961, mother tells me that I was a slim baby weighing 7lbs and that I was born feet first, in a hospital in Kensington, London. My mother named me Sandra Yvonne Murray. It became apparent very early on that I had great difficulty learning to read as did my brothers, but I was determined to master this skill and I recall being of primary school age and picking up a book given to me by a teacher as homework and I would ask my brother, Leighton, to tell me what word I was trying to read. I went back to him for every word in one sentence and he patiently told me the word. Then at nine years old I wanted to write a love letter to a boy in school and sat there at the table while my mother prepared food in the adjacent kitchen and I would shout to her ‘Mum how do you spell love’, ‘How do you spell…?’ etc, etc, etc and she told me. I learnt to read at the age very close to leaving primary school and did not discover that I am dyslexic until I had achieved my social work diploma and became a probation officer. One of my managers in a London Probation office said to me ‘you speak very well, but your spelling is a bit off maybe you should get tested for dyslexia,’ so I paid several hundred pounds to be tested. The psychologist who assessed me commented that he was surprised that I had achieved so much academically, but warned me never to fly a plane. I have gone on to achieve a Master’s in Advanced Social Work and a post qualifying award in Social work, passing with merit. I have a diploma in counselling survivors of childhood sexual abuse and I am an ordained Interfaith Minister. More recently I have collaborated with other authors and written and published a chapter about protecting children from online abuse in a book for counsellors and therapists. Who would have thought this little black girl, who grew up in poverty and had other childhood challenges; including being unable to read until quite late in childhood, would ever have achieved so much academically, emotionally and spiritually?

Throughout all my childhood the name Sandra never really felt like mine and in my teenage years I would refer to myself as Janna or something else, as I never really felt like the name given to me at birth ever really suited me. Maybe I wanted to separate myself from that name due to my painful childhood experiences. I was always a deep thinker with an imagination that was just out of this world. My mother would refer to me as melancholy as I would often day dream and had the most morbid scenarios that I would talk to her about such as ‘Mum what would life be like if we were not really here and this life was just a dream and we woke up and discovered that we did not have this family we felt so connected to?’ My mother thought I was a bit morbid and very melodramatic. Indeed as a child I was, but as I grew up I became more and more logical in my thinking and needed explanations and answers to the wonders of life which lead me to reading a great deal and indulging in debate with others about life after death, the struggle of poverty, what is the meaning of love, and should we really fear God. My family were good at holding debates and my mother and brothers would often sit around discussing a number of topics. Once we discussed the existence of ghosts and what if we were the ghosts, but just not conscious of it. How interesting that would be?

I became intrigued with meditation and relating to spirituality without conforming to a specific religion. As much as I wanted to belong to a particular faith, I never felt like I belonged, or I didn’t like the way women were treated in those groups. I kept seeking spiritual experiences that would include me without asking me to sign up to a specific way of being in order to belong. It was during a meditation workshop that I discovered my new and current name. We were asked to sit quietly and listen to sweet soothing music with our eyes closed. I went into a lovely warm dream whereby I could hear running water and then saw in my mind’s eye a little African woman passing water from hand to hand. Her back was to me and the water flowed in front her. As she stretched out her hands, she caught the water and passed it from one hand to the other and it looked like a rainbow of water that she was moving from hand to hand. I recall asking her ‘what are you doing?’ and she turned her head towards me and said ‘Shhh.’, with a finger over her lips, ‘You must learn to listen to the silence’. I remember thinking, how do you listen to silence. I then asked her ‘Who are you?’ and she said, ‘The name is Aqualma’, she spelt it out A-q-u-a-l-m-a. To my surprise when I came out of the meditation, I remembered the spelling, being dyslexic that was quite an achievement for me. I thought this little African woman must be a guide of some sort, so I wrote the name down, and did not think much about it. Then one day as I was watching television there was a woman called Aquilla and I thought oh she has a name similar to mine. At that point I wondered if the name was meant to be mine and as the days passed I became convinced that it should be. I officially took on the name and went to a solicitor who drew up papers declaring that my name was now Aqualma Sandra Yvonne Murray. I have since discovered that the name Aqualma consists of two Latin words Aqua meaning water and Alma being spiritual mother, indeed my son tells me that since changing my name I am less confronting in the face of injustice and more peaceful in my protest when I feel I need to complain or object to how I have been treated or served in a public setting. I was also told by a Ghanaian student that I had the pleasure of tutoring that the name Aqualma is similar to a Ghanaian name which would be chosen for a child if the family had struggled to have a baby and was then blessed with a child. That child would be called Aqualma to say thank you Lord. My name feels like a blessing and I would like everything about my life to say thank you to the source that nourishes me.

This book is about understanding why we go through what we do and how to make every experience, good or bad, work for us. What a bold statement, and many would say that if I understood many of the horrific things that people had to endure, I would be less hasty to make such a statement. Indeed, at times, I wonder why this experience on earth is so terrifying and painful for so much of the time.

To illustrate this, I’ll tell you what happened just three days after arriving in Jamaica in 2013, with the intention of seeing my ailing, elderly uncle, who had recently undergone brain surgery to remove a swelling and a blood clot from the right frontal lobe of his brain. Uncle Phineas, at the age of 85, had survived the surgery but required ongoing hospitalisation in order to heal. He was alive and growing stronger every day. Myself and my two cousins C and Bonny, took the nine-and-a-half hour plane flight to Kingston, Jamaica where we were to be met by my eldest brother Clement, my mother’s first son. My cousin C was met by her father and went off with him. My cousin Bonny and I waited for a short while to be met by my brother Clement who got the car and off we went on the two-hour drive to my Aunt J’s home. As we drove in the warm night air we admired the improvements to the roads in Jamaica. The main road had been tremendously improved. It was smooth and wide with bright cat’s eyes, and there were two brand new toll booths. Clement spoke of how proud we should be of all that had been achieved over the past few years in relation to the infrastructure of Jamaica—it was noted that we have a long way to go but things are looking up. We drove the long pretty road for some two hours, happily chatting away and feeling good to be in lovely Jamaica. Clement and I were in the front of the car while Bonny relaxed in the back which did not prevent him from frequently engaging in the conversation about the way Jamaica use to be and how things had changed.

Then we got to Clement’s home area, a nice little quiet place in Manchester, commonly known as the country part of Jamaica. The roads were quiet with just a few stores and bars open and a small number of people walking or riding their bikes around in the dusk of the evening when it was now just getting dark. Without informing Bonny and I, Clement had decided to stop at his home so that we could say hi to his wife Ros, before going on to Aunt J’s home which was a further thirty-minute drive. So we drove down the dark, untreated road, over big rocks, ditches, bumps and gulley’s, very slowly and carefully until we got to Clement’s gated but unlocked front door. I quickly got out of the car and went into the house and hugged, my sister-in-law, Ros, with my cousin Bonny very closed behind me. As cousin Bonny greeted Ros, I turned back out of the gate and saw my brother busily looking into the car for his phone that had slipped underneath the front seat. I joined him in the search and very quickly found his Blackberry phone under the back area of the driver’s seat.

Having handed the phone to Clement, we started to make our way back into the house, at which point three unknown men appeared at the gated entrance and spoke in a very authoritarian tone, saying, We are looking for someone, a short man who has killed a man down the road. We had hardly answered them to say that no such person lived there nor was such a person in the house, when they quickly ushered us all into the house, saying ‘Get in, go in the house now.’ Two of the men had their hands on their trouser waists as if they had guns or other weapons there, the third man quickly brandished a long, broad knife. On entering the house, one of the men stepped forward and did all the talking. He was quite menacing and aggressive and asked us if we had guns on us, still brandishing the knife. I was terrified but, somehow, I remembered my social work training about diffusing aggression. Unfortunately, they were near the door and we were not. The first thing the social work training told us was to stay near to the escape route, the door, which we were not. So, I sat on the sofa in order not to appear threatening and asked them what they wanted, however the main aggressor was focused on my cousin Bonny who stood silently in the middle of the room and did not answer when the aggressor kept asking him who he was. So, I answered and was very careful not to indicate that we had just come off a plane and arrived in Jamaica, but without lying I said he comes from down the road, where his mother lives, this is not the man you are looking for. Then one of them took my handbag, which I had placed beside me on the black leather sofa where I sat. He threw the contents on the chair, then went in my purse and took all the money out. While that was happening, the aggressor was physically attacking my cousin Bonny with a big, long sharp kitchen knife. Without thinking, I rushed over to Bonny and got in between him and the aggressor, shouting, Leave him alone, he has nothing for you. I pulled at the back of the aggressor’s neatly pressed white T-shirt, while he wrestled with Bonny to take money that he had in his pocket, hitting him in the head with the back of the long knife. Once the aggressor had prised the money from my cousin, his attention was turned towards me as I continued to try and get in between him and my cousin. The aggressor, quickly spun around and stood firmly opposite me, holding the long sharp knife, raised above his head, and said to me in no uncertain terms, Lady, back off, back off lady. I saw the knife raised above me most of all. I heard his voice and realised that I had placed myself at great risk, so very quickly, I did as I was told. I backed away, just a little bit, trying my best not to show any fear and attempting to act as normally as possible and kept talking. My sister-in-law shouted, Look they have taken the money from your purse. I begged the man who still had his right hand placed on his trouser pocket, to give me back my money, as he held his other hand high in the air with my three hundred pounds, tightly grasped between his fingers triumphantly, like it was a trophy of great achievement. All three men took what they could from us and quickly left. The main aggressor with the knife stated, in a strong Jamaican accent We don’t come to hurt nobody, stay inside and don’t leave the house. They left us feeling shocked, stunned and somewhat shaken. Even though we saw the car of the three robbers drive away we remained in that house as instructed by the aggressor for at least 10 minutes, under the guise of trying to phone the police who never responded to their emergency number that we called so many times.

At that point I began to feel angry and frustrated at the inadequate and feeble infrastructure of the Jamaican Police Constabulary and